By Memory Pamella Kadau
The previous installments touched on the legal regime regulating abortion in Zimbabwe having previously established that abortion doesn’t pose a moral dilemma. If anything, abortion services are part of the basic health needs for tens of thousands of women each year in Zimbabwe. That the law proscribes safe abortion by choice, limiting it to exceptional cases of medical emergencies, rape and incest is an act of injustice which undermines this right. This article will look at the dimension of how existing abortion regulation undermines the fundamental right of pregnant women to bodily integrity enjoyed by all other humans.
Section 51 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe states that “every person has inherent dignity in their private and public life, and the right to have that dignity respected.” The constitution further provides for the right to access basic healthcare services, including reproductive healthcare services in section 76. These two sections must be seen in the broader context of protecting the bodily integrity of all citizens and they are further reinforced by international conventions and instruments which Zimbabwe is a party to. Yet pregnant women in this country and the rest of the world, have been denied the right to bodily autonomy and integrity through coercion or violence, even with the existence of such constitutional provisions.
At this stage, dear reader, it is important that I provide a working definition/s of bodily autonomy and integrity so that we have a shared understanding of what I am referring to. Bodily autonomy is the right for women to determine their own fate without undue policing of their bodies which is a pre-requisite to living a life with dignity (IESOGI,2021). Bodily integrity refers to the recognition that our bodies are our own, they matter, and we have the right to determine what or who gets access to them.
This bodily integrity extends to sexual and reproductive health issues for which pregnancy is part of, thus pregnant women retain their right to bodily integrity hence they must have a choice of keeping or terminating it. It is common cause that pregnancy transforms a woman’s body into one that supports another but nevertheless the body remains hers. This stark reality is often overlooked in anti-abortion political arguments, particularly when that discourse is male-dominated, as is the current situation in Zimbabwe.
However, to understand why this is so it is important for me to explore a little deeper about pregnancy. For most of human history, pregnancy was not acknowledged or confirmed until the stage of quickening i.e. the moment when a pregnant woman begins to feel the movements of the prenate. The term prenate is the scientific word that refers to the developing entity as long as it resides inside a woman’s body. This process of a fetus moving occurs well into the second trimester and well after the earlier stages of embryonic development. Until the 19th century, society didn’t have the technology to detect pregnancy in the early weeks and while they are indigenous ways of knowing if a woman is pregnant, these only provided knowledge much later in the development of the embryo. It is in this context that any laws, cultural practices, attitudes and understanding of pregnancy refer to the pregnancy after 15-20 weeks because that is when everyone became aware of it. This is why the discourse on abortion excludes scientific evidence which shows that safe abortions can be performed up until week 12 of the prenate’s development. It is understanding based on our past yet to move forward society must embrace change which science has brought about.
I certainly affirm the dignity of the unborn and acknowledge the bodily integrity of duo involved in pregnancy. However, it would be disingenuous to continue talking about abortion as though a woman’s body is only related to fetal life. Much of contemporary discussions on abortion suggest as though a woman’s uterus is no longer her own when it is nurturing a fetus. This is problematic and raises serious questions: Do pregnant women retain their bodily integrity right just like all other humans? Do they remain equal to other citizens and therefore able to make their own choices? Do we understand the mental stamina required for a woman to carry a pregnancy to term? Now because we have the relevant scientific evidence on pregnancy, it is important that women retain their choice and be allowed by law and policy to safely determine if they want to keep a pregnancy or not. Illegalizing abortion impacts negative on the legal status of women. It is fundamentally flawed and hypocritical to recognize fetuses as full persons while women, with the burden to carry and care for the fetuses, loose their rights as full constitutional persons.
If fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses are treated as separate persons, the consequences to pregnant women grievous. These include losing their rights to life, health, bodily integrity, and medical decision-making, as well as their right to privacy in medical information. A pregnant woman who goes for her first appointment at prenatal care has no privacy or confidentiality in her medical information, because she is carrying a separate person, who may be protected by the State. She would have no right to privacy at all upon becoming pregnant. These are far reaching consequences which should never be imposed on a person without choice as this would amount to gross violation of bodily integrity and a host of other rights.
Choice is even more critical in developing countries like Zimbabwe where poverty is very high. Research has demonstrated that denying women access to abortion triggers outcomes that have far reaching consequences throughout their lives, impacting everything from education years they complete, to how much they earn and levels of poverty. It has also been observed that women who have been denied abortion become mothers who suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and this negatively impact on their child’s development.
